What We Do When No One's Around...

Dan and I have officially begun our first big break here in San Juan. We no groups scheduled for the next 5 weeks! So, as you can imagine, we have had a lot of people asking "What are you going to do with all your time off??" Well, here is just a little of what we have done, and what we plan to do...

This morning, Margo and I went to the market, I wanted her to help me learn all the names of the fruits and vegetables (some of which I've never seen before!) and also, what prices are good for each:

The two of us also worked really hard giving the kitchen/dining area a spring cleaning...

 The freshly organized pantry...

 While we were hard at work, Dan took a fishing trip with his buddies...

 Olvis (one of our translators) with his big catch of the day! haha

Monchy (our bus driver), definitely one of the more experienced fishermen 

 But of course, back at the guest house there is always a project to be done:

 Dan working hard at fixing the water pump...again                

An ingenious fix to our water leakage problem:

One of the big projects that we are hoping to tackle this upcoming break is to turn THIS:

 ... into a usable living space! It's gonna take a bit of work, but we are hoping to make it a living room/kitchenette area :)

Of course, Diego finds his own ways to stay busy between groups ;) This puppy will never have a want for more love, that's for sure!

Oops

So, our invertor has been on the fritz...for like 3 weeks now. Everyday, about 3 times a day lights go out that shouldn't go out and we lose power to very important things like our computers, the refridgerators, security lights, internet and phone. We have an electrition named Marcos that we've been working with to resolve this problem. However, after 3 weeks, we seem to be no closer to a solution.
All along the way Dan has been getting rather frustrated (and rightly so) at this problem and Marcos' seeming lack of ability to fix it. He has asked me multiple times to fire him and or/give him a piece of our minds to maybe light a little fire under him.
...I'm not much of a confrontational person. I'm not so good at lighting fires under people. So, much to Dan's dismay I've been ignoring his urgings and continued to try to be polite and reasonable with this guy... that is, until this afternoon.
I was up in the room some e-mails and documents that I needed to finish in a timely manner, when my computer lost power and the internet was gone...again. And Marcos had just been here again this afternoon! UGH! I was so frustrated that I picked up the phone, I called him up and I finally gave him that piece of my mind!
I went to tell Dan right away that I had finally done it, but before I even got a moment to celebrate my victory... he pointed out the fact that I had somehow managed to step on the button on the surge protector that the computer and internet are plugged into... thus turning it off. This means that everything is working fine... poor Marcos. For the first time, I'm actually hoping something with the inverter does go wrong now so I don't have to eat my words any more than I already have. *sigh*
This is why I should always let Dan play the meanie...

A Day in the Life...

I actually enjoy blogging... I didn't think I would, but I do.

My problem is that I'm not really good at it. The smallest number of days will go by like a flash and I don't have the chance to sit down and write- and then suddenly I'm overwhelmed. Then it's all over. There has been too much that has happened and my poor little brain hasn't nearly had the chance to process or make any sense out of it. How in the world am I supposed to 'sum up' all the conversations, nuances, emotional up's and down's and daily drama into a whitty and composed paragraph for the world?
So world, forgive me for my lack of whit and possibly for my failure at making any sense at all, but mostly for my procrastination that comes from the result of both.

Here is what I can eek out about today:

Every morning I wake up at 5:00am (it seems silly now to think of how annoyed I would get at my puppy when he used to wake me up at 7:30am for his breakfast). I don't take a shower, because that would be rather pointless. Instead, I do what I can with my bed-hair and plop down at the computer to check out if there are any urgent e-mails for the day. Most of the time there are, but it is a toss up whether or not I am actually awake enough to deal with them yet. More often than not, the sound of Dan cooking (Yes- he cooks! He takes care of almost all breakfast prep every morning! LOVE it!) down in the kitchen and the knowledge that there is a fresh pot of delicious Dominican coffee brewing, lures me downstairs.

This morning we tried round 2 of Baked French Toast. The first time I made it, it stuck to the pan like crazy and got rather burnt- boo. But we took the necessary precautions and it was quite yummy today :) I think it's gonna be a keeper. Breakfast is a semi-organized chaos most mornings- especially with a group of 40 people. Add translators, and other helpers/staff on top of that and we have about 60 people moving through our dining area and kitchen in every which direction. They are supposed to be on the road to their various work sites by 8:00am, but we are in a Latin American country and, as such, follow their time standards well ;) Once everyone is finally on the road or settled into the work that they are supposed to be doing, it is usually about 9:00am.

This morning, Carmelina (the woman who croquets various items to sell for us) stopped by with a few new items to drop off and she also brought me a new fruit that I've never seen before. Margo told me that it's called Guanabana- and I love it!

It has the weirdest texture of any fruit ever- so for those of you who know me and my food texture issues, it is saying a lot that I like it as much as I do! I'm hoping to make an awesome fruit smoothie out of it later- Not a bad way to avoid funky textures ;)
Today was a big cooking day. Margo actually started on today's dinner, yesterday afternoon. One of the guys in the group requested that she make a dish called "Sancocho". Sancocho basically just means "stew", so there are many different kinds/ways to make it- but this time she went all out and made us Sancocho de Chivo...Goat Stew... and it was AWESOME. I am so lucky to live somewhere where all the food is so stinkin delicious.
Just realized that most of my post has been about food... I think I've spent a little too much time in the kitchen lately. More about non-food related stuff later!